Archive for September, 2009
I was a bit bemused to find my favourite newspaper encouraging sensible Germans to save less and spend more.
The Economist has been the way I ‘connect’ with the real rather than the virtual world over the last ten years and I think it may have just lost the plot.
We are being encouraged to save more - or at least pay off our own debts - and buy less so that we don’t get into debt in the first place. To find a voice that is so usually sensible suggesting that a nation of savers has got it all wrong is a bit of a shame.
Germany is Europe’s best hope of encouraging a change towards responsible citizenship, enlightened laws, local action and green industry. I wonder if Cameron, Osborne, et al will berate Merkel for her country not buying enough tat. Hopefully not.
Having just bought something of value - a watch - the first one I’ve bought since 1995 (or worn since 2003 if I’m honest), we should indeed be saving more and spending less.
Tut, tut Mr Economist. Go for it Mrs Merkel… get those Euros in the bank.
September 20th, 2009
Wasn’t sure whether to post this on Twitter or Facebook, but thought perhaps the blog was just the place and so that way it wouldn’t disappear below a whole load of other posts that quickly!
Renault’s marketing people have - as the title suggests - given a very poor name to their new eco car.
It’s called the Fluence.
Unfortunately if you put an e at the start of that, it sounds like e(f)fluence.
To be fair, an effluence is a flowing out, something being let loose. In my mind it has connotations of a bit of a pong.
He used to say ‘what an obnoxious effluvium’. Quite a vocabulary building lesson for a seven year old.
So, a car called Fluence might be okay if the electricity it uses will eventually come from rotting veg or human poop, but I don’t think their marketing department covered themselves in glory on this occasion.
What is impressive is that it will charge to 80% capacity from a 230v source in 20 minutes. That’s quicker than my phone…
September 20th, 2009
The sun has been shining on Edinburgh, shining with all its might, even at the weekend, apologies to Lewis Carroll notwithstanding. Last Saturday, we managed an Outing which I am now thinking of as a bramble ramble. The fact that I can also now write about it may make it a (short) ramble about brambles, so the title stays.
The cycle path network is where trains used to run in the past through the north of Edinburgh. Our possible commuting loss is our free time gain, and one of the reasons I like living where we do - easy to get about without always travelling on main roads.
As well as the brambles, we saw quite a lot of (mostly now empty) raspberry canes too, which led me to think that we need an earlier sortie down there next year. We were also able to get some rosehips, some elderberries, and some other berries which I enthusiastically hoped were sloes but turned out not to be when I got them home and checked.
There’s clearly a good level of traffic up and down the cycle paths - some cycles, plenty of people out on foot too. What interested me was the range of responses that our brambling brought out in passersby.
Most positive: two sisters plus dad: “Blackberries! Excellent!” said the younger sister, and they stopped to pick and eat near us. The elder sister lost no opportunity to tell the younger one what not to do; the younger one lost no opportunity to eat brambles and ignore her sister.
Next response: a dad and a son going by. They both seemed to know what we were doing, and the dad then proceeded to talk to the boy about large bramble roots as they then walked on. He had a point - some of the runners coming out from the plants were particularly impressive (or aggressive, depending on your interpretation) this year.
Somewhat worrying response: family and friends party on foot, youngest girl in full princess dress regalia, but still at least four years old, I think. As they passed, she was heard to ask “What are they doing?” I had to hope that someone would tell her, but they didn’t while we were in earshot.
What saddened me about the last response was that such a simple and easy activity was unknown to the girl, and that she and her family were missing out, not just on treats but free treats, and a family activity too. When you can get free and exciting sauces for icecream from cooking brambles, as well as the brambles themselves, what price princess dresses?
September 15th, 2009
…sing along! This post is dedicated to Oscar, who came all the way from Germany to see us in February. (His mum Grit, a former flat mate of mine, tagged along too.)
Oscar has been learning some songs in English, and their visit was punctuated by spontaneous “If you’re happy and you know it” singing sessions. Two on the Royal Mile, on separate days, one on the way up Arthur’s Seat (if I remember rightly for the last day).
What was nice was a) getting a sense of when Oscar was enjoying himself, by his choice of song and b) seeing the reactions from passersby. One couple clearly thought this was a good idea and joined in one occasion. But for me, the fun was also seeing Edinburgh from the perspective of a 5 year old boy, and enjoying all the spontaneity, singing included, that that allowed for.
Oscar was occasionally unsure of what he was actually singing…”Slap you sigh…” turned out to be [if you’re happy and you know it] slap your thigh! But his number skills in English were well developed, allowing for some good bus number spotting when heading into town, and we all got by in a mixture of English and German (a bit of a treat for me too, that way).
We took in tourist attractions, to be sure, but also identified car types on the road, collected shells from the beach and strung them together, discovered a sea slug which was iridescent, played some card games, posed for LOTS of photos, tried bilingual bedtime stories (having the same book in two languages), and engaged in significant role play while climbing Arthur’s Seat, following orders from General Oscar. I was certainly happy…and thankfully, I think our visitors were too.
September 15th, 2009
None too good at lucid thought in the mornings on the way to work. There’s a reason why they put free papers on the buses in the mornings. It gives us something to hide behind.
I’m usually not even awake enough for that, more about staring out the window and hoping to wake up after the mid morning coffee, at least. But every now and then, I see a few sights from the bus that wake me up a little: if only to try to work out what I saw.
Large man approaches the nursery near the entrance to Granton Road. He is carrying a small girl on his shoulder, and her rather pink rucksack in one hand. As the bus pulls past, I realise that he has a tabard on the back which says “Security”. Is this a metaphor for our society’s fear of harm to children, or just a man dropping off his daughter at nursery before going to work?
Passing a group of commuters, one reading a paper while standing at the bus stop, I realise that he appears not just to be reading it but sniffing it…Is he hoping to impart the information more quickly? Are there any lingering solvents he’s trying to take in?
Another man stands at a bus stop, with a small child in a sling on his front. The child gets gradually larger as the weeks go by. I never see him interact with the child. The child never looks up at him either. But the child does seem peaceful. Perhaps they are just allowed to be as vacant as I am in the mornings.
Another lady boards the bus in a smart outfit, all vintage dress and flowing shawl. She carries what seems to be a wheeled suitcase, and at first I think she is a tourist. Then she keeps turning up with the same suitcase, but different outfits each day.
She still wears the shawl on a day which is tipping it down. I still wonder if she is in fact a tourist, as opposed to a resident, who will either wear a wind and rainproof jacket all year round (like me) or a T shirt all year round (like some of the people who wait at my morning bus stop).
When I was a waitress full time, for part of my gap year before university, I worked in a cafe which had a lot of regulars. As members of staff, we knew to expect them. Some of them even gained nicknames in time (whether they knew them was another matter).
As a usually daily commuter, at times I feel similar to this, spotting the regulars as well as the ‘irregulars’, in terms of the unusual. Certainly I don’t think I dress in an exciting enough way to stand out to other people watchers. But maybe I’m a regular to someone else, caught in their own dream of morning on the move.
September 14th, 2009
It’s good to know that, while some of us missed Beatlemania the first time round, there’s still opportunities to catch up - or get caught up - one way or another. Read my way through a fairly useful guide to all the albums and singles included in the weekend paper - I now have more of an understanding of the order of album production, which is sure to come in very handy at some point (Beatles pub quiz, anyone?).
What stood out for me more was a Storyville documentary on the impact of the Beatles on the young people of the Soviet Union in the early 60s, and beyond. An example of good journalism, I would say: the starting premise - that the Beatles’ influence helped the fall of Communism even more than perestroika etc - was actually confirmed, again and again, through the film. The maker of the film indicated his initial uncertainty at this claim, but there were so many people interviewed who iterated the claim that you got to feel by the end that it must be true.
The bit we laughed at was hearing how someone worked out how to make a guitar pickup out of telephone components - result: sudden rash of vandalism of call boxes the next day as lots of people rushed out to try it for themselves. (Not commending vandalism, but in terms of an example of effectively railing against the system, it did have a certain kudos.)
By the end of the programme, seeing footage of Paul McCartney playing a concert in Kiev - to a crowd standing there throughout pouring rain, hearing one of their heroes playing “Back in the USSR” to them - it was hard not to wipe away a tear.
For some of the interviewees, it also brought home to me the impact of banning religion under Communism, and the desire of people to find something to believe in. Lennon may have quipped about being bigger than Jesus, but if Jesus is banned, then it’s not entirely surprising if people choose to find something or someone else to believe in, and some people really did see the Beatles in a more religious light, even before their visits to India.
It also reminded me of the impact of what people pass on to you. Both Dan and I grew up with hearing the Beatles - my parents had the records, Dan’s mum even got to go to a concert or two and scream with everyone else. Reading this little booklet from the newspaper, with current and contemporary assessment of the albums and individual songs, it was interesting to compare their comments with my own take on some of the songs.
Sergeant Pepper is the album everyone know - or feels they do. As an adult, the trippy references become clearer - as a child, it just sounds like something akin to Alice in Wonderland “where looking glass people eat marshmallow pies”, part of that same happy environment of nonsense that is hardwired into children’s literature in the UK.
It was quite fun reading others’ comments in the booklet about their own take on certain songs, if hearing about the Beatles as a child. My brother thought that “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” was about our dog Lucy (there’s not a lot of dog references in the song, I’ll give you), for example. “Yellow Submarine” may annoy adults, but works perfectly well as a kids singalong - not every pop band can achieve that, as well as astounding the adults with their latest innovations in sound.
It wasn’t just that the songs were part of my childhood. References to the songs were also part of my childhood: Peter Sellers’ take off of “A Hard Day’s Night”, in the style of Richard III; “Here Comes the Sun” being used for the theme tune to the Holiday programme on TV.
They formed the backdrop to key activities such as holiday car journeys - the album Hard Day’s Night was a crucial part of the car tape repertoire, which in turn meant that we all sang along. Long car journeys from various parts of England, up to the west coast of Scotland, give you a long time to tune your ear into their harmonies, and to experience that thing so satisfying as a child, your parents enjoying something for themselves and including you in it.
So it seems that wherever we are on the long and winding road since Beatlemania, we still need them. We still enjoy them. Through new computer games, we can even learn to play and sing like them (finances and equipment permitting). And we still find new uses for their songs.
Reading this little booklet, there are several references to Paul McCartney adding in the song “Her Majesty” at the end of one album, and various people (Lennon and critics alike) disliking the song. Cut to a few decades later, and a certain concert for the Golden Jubilee - and suddenly we realise that there’s even a song there, ready made, when a certain songwriter is important enough, and long lived enough, to sing that song to the lady herself.
September 13th, 2009
The nights are drawing in, and so on. Myself, I think the days are drawing in, and the nights are sneaking up behind and getting in on the act. However you view it, I thought it was starting to get sufficiently seasonal to write this post.
Stew vs. mash is not my evening meal quandry (particularly as Dan is kindly off cooking something completely different), but more of a musing on terms used to indicate when a cup or pot of tea is ready. Brew, draw, etc, all fine - but how likely is it linguistically to get two terms that get used for other food activities AND actually fit with each other, in terms of their other meaning?
Purists will tell me that stew is the point when the tea has gone beyond ready, but it just interested me to see this little pattern arising, in relation to that beloved drink of the UK. I was going to write national drink, but a) coffee may have overtaken it and b) the news is now in the papers that Diageo will not keep jobs in Kilmarnock (for Johnny Walker whisky), so those viewing whisky as the national drink have enough to worry about without a rival claim from tea today.
Meanwhile, the Scotsman did one of its longer pieces on a forthcoming book about an enterprising Scot who did lots of exploring (and/or smuggling, according to your viewpoint) of plants in China, ultimately leading to the identification of a wide range of tea plants. The article tried to hang it on the idea of the man being responsible for tea coming to the UK - perhaps not, but another of those popular science stories that turn out to be fairly amazing.
Dan is reading “Connections” - not an English text book (ah, all those travel-related titles beloved of ELT editors) but the book accompanying the James Burke TV series of many moons ago. The gist of it is that one invention or discovery, big or small, may lead on to many others, and the cumulative effect may be far more than anyone would have thought at the time of the original discovery.
I don’t know quite what you would trace as a line of inventions coming from tea, but I do know that I would ‘invent’ far fewer documents or other items of hopefully (useful) purpose without a certain reliance on tea in the afternoons. Maybe that’s enough connection. From stew to mash, and hence to gravy (train)?
September 10th, 2009
Through to Glasgow - and beyond! The bright lights of Glasgow Queen Street Lower Level - and the even brighter yellow plastic seating - are good for keeping you awake when heading from A to B.
But what I’d noticed last time I used this station, and was reminded of today, was the almost constant injunction over the tannoy: “Always hold the handrail - and take care on the stairs.”
Now this is all well and good, all risks assessed and dealt with. What interests me is the little light attempts at poetry that public announcements offer. It could be a missing verse from Paul Simon’s “50 ways to leave your lover”. If only he’d taken care on the stairs, he might not have needed to slip out the back, Jack…
Some of these announcements are so ingrained, you almost feel you could slip them into conversation to change the tone, if you weren’t sure what to say next. The melody of them, familiar as verse because we hear them so much, is comforting - as well as becoming fairly devoid of meaning, after a while. Some of them even slip into everyday use, usually to parody ourselves: “exits are here, here and here…”
You can probably add your own, but here’s my selection of ‘public poetry’ options for your next cocktail party:
- “the person you are calling knows you are waiting”
- “a trolley service…of drinks and light refreshments…is available on the train”
- “or why not send a text?”
- “…and…Glenrothes with Thorntons.”
They don’t really say Thorntons. But I live in hope that the trolley service might hand them out some time, as we prepare to uplift all our personal belongings.
September 9th, 2009
I know I’ve said before that this blogging lark is more for me than it is for you (though I hope that’s not a selfish statement). Having come home stroppy two nights in a row, part of what made the difference yesterday was sitting and writing, and having a chance to calm down.
But then, when people do comment, it makes it all the more worthwhile - particularly where I learn more about them, or their thoughts on life as a result. Last time I restarted the blog, I had comments from male friends - maybe not so surprising given that it’s still more the men than the women who blog.
This time, great to hear from female friends straight off - so perhaps I can encourage some of them towards their own blog writing? Many have really interesting thoughts to share.
One of the other things I’ve enjoyed for myself, and am now trying to spread a little further, is the art of sending parcels. When I lived in Poland the first time, I was working in a school for the blind, and my mum learned that you could send up to a kilo of parcel for free (in most post offices) if it was marked ‘for the services of the blind’. She must have kept the local post office very busy, anyway, because I got some great parcels! And the kids I worked with got benefits too from sheet music and other things she sent over which I could use in teaching.
I’ve been reminded of it when sending parcels to friends in Italy. Being both frugal and enjoying a spot of tesselation (that’s cramming multiple items into boxes to you), I’m having fun seeing how much can be fitted into the standard boxes you can buy from the post office.
Book reviews torn out of the weekend newspapers make great padding for smaller items, I’ve discovered, and I have a suspicion that squashy bags of ground coffee might work well too. (Coals to Newcastle, I’m sure, sending coffee to Italy, but it’s part of a particular theme for that parcel.)
The memorable parcels were ones we used to get on holiday on the Isle of Jura. It tending to be somewhat wet in the west, shall we say, relatives who knew we were going on holiday would put together parcels, knowing that there would be a wet day (or more) AND that the books we had taken with us would run out at some point. Getting a parcel part way through, with new books, but perhaps also sweeties or a game…great excitement.
The ultimate parcel? A sofa bed, which was in the cottage on Jura for many years. One time, those staying in the cottage were told by the postmaster that there was a ‘parcel’ for them at the pier…the sofa bed had been delivered and was waiting to be collected. It was known forever more as ‘the parcel’, which allowed you to have somewhat opaque conversations with nearest and dearest about the relative merits of ’sleeping on the parcel’.
September 9th, 2009
Only one more this evening, I promise…that’s the trouble with writing about food, you always think you can fit another one in…in this case, one more blog post for the night.
One reason for blog absence in the last few months has been because of doing more stuff to our flat: this time, taking out the lovely fake fireplace in our bedroom (70s brickwork, anyone?), getting the wall replastered, plus new paint and carpet. A variant on the kind of things we had done last year, but with the added satisfaction of gaining a tool called a gorilla, for levering under bricks (and in the process worrying a few people who were trying to work out what on earth we were talking about on Facebook).
With the best of intentions, building projects don’t always finish when you intend…and some don’t quite get finished. But yesterday, we got some pictures back up on the walls, and had a sense of things being nearly done. Sometimes the list of DIY tasks sits unaltered for months, looking back at me reproachfully when I check in my useful notebook. But it’s great not just to tick them off the list - but enjoy the benefit of them as well.
One of the big gains, although not so much in feet and inches (or metric, for that matter), is some extra space in our bedroom where the fireplace and corner unit used to be. Now we can fit an armchair in, and start using the room for being somewhere quiet during the daytime or evening - in fact, I am writing from there. Sofas are quite fun for blogging from, but for now, armchairs are even better - particularly when I get a nice view of the sky when getting home from work early enough.
New rooms for old.
September 8th, 2009
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